The present invention is directed generally to data network and telephone based customer service systems. More specifically, the present invention is directed to associating concurrent data network and telephone communication sessions to share data between data network and telephone customer service systems during the concurrent communication sessions.
Many companies provide both telephone and data network (“web”) applications for customers (“users”) to access products and services. A telephone application can be an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to automatically interact with a user via a telephone call or an agent support system which is used by a customer service representative to assist a user via a telephone call. A web application is an application accessible by a user via a data network, such as the Internet. Typically a user uses a web browser to access a web application. Telephone and web applications are used to interact with customers in a variety of fields including, travel reservations (i.e., flights, hotels, rental cars), financial transactions (i.e., credit card billing, bank statements, stock purchasing), consumer products (i.e., books, music), etc.
Although many companies provide two modes (telephone and web) to access their products and services, the capabilities of the two modes are not equivalent. Therefore, certain transactions may be available using one of the modes and not the other. For example, in a case of an airline reservation system, a user may be able to make reservations using a user account on a web site of the airline or by calling a customer service representative. However, the user may only be able to change an existing reservation by calling the customer service representative. Furthermore, when a user concurrently uses both modes, changes made using one mode are not reflected in the other mode. For example, in the case of an airline reservation system, if a user communicates with a customer service representative via a telephone call to make changes in an itinerary, the user cannot view the changes being made by the customer service representative on the web site of the airline, while the changes are being made.